A New Way of Toughening of Thermoset by Dual-Cured Thermoplastic/Thermosetting Blend

Abstract

The work aims at establishing the optimum conditions for dual thermal and electron beam curing of thermosetting systems modified by styrene/butadiene (SB)-based triblock copolymers in order to develop transparent and toughened materials. The work also investigates the effects of curing procedures on the ultimate phase morphology and mechanical properties of these thermoset–SB copolymer blends. It was found that at least 46 mol% of the epoxidation degree of the SB copolymer was needed to enable the miscibility of the modified block copolymer into the epoxy resin. Hence, an electron beam curing dose of ~50 kGy was needed to ensure the formation of micro- and nanostructured transparent blends. The micro- and nanophase-separated thermosets obtained were analyzed by optical as well as scanning and transmission electron microscopy. The mechanical properties of the blends were enhanced as shown by their impact strengths, indentation, hardness, and fracture toughness analyses, whereby the toughness values were found to mainly depend on the dose. Thus, we have developed a new route for designing dual-cured toughened micro- and nanostructured transparent epoxy thermosets with enhanced fracture toughness.